


What I Want to be When I Grow Up

by SunnyD_lite



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Tag to Ariel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-22
Updated: 2008-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-07 17:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyD_lite/pseuds/SunnyD_lite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon always knew what he was going to do when he grew up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I Want to be When I Grow Up

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was Dreams, I took the spin of aspirations.   
> Disclaimer: I am the mighty Joss, look on my works and oh who am I kidding. Written for fun not profit. I own NOTHING!  
> And a huge hug to **spiralleds** for brainstorming and flyby betaing.

BOOK  
Yes, I'd forgotten you're moonlighting as a criminal mastermind  
now. Got your next heist planned?   
SIMON  
No, but I'm thinking of growing a big black mustache. I'm a traditionalist   
\- War Stories, Firefly

 

He was still sorting through the -- He supposed loot was not an inappropriate term for the medicines in front of him. The sight of bottles forming rows and rows in marching formation comforted the part of him that craved order; something he now accepted as an illusion, at least out here in the Black. He rocked back on his heels, smiling at his domain. A completely stocked infirmary: something he was sure this ship had never seen, at least under current management.

He was whispering the names of the drugs as his fingers trailed along the fronts of the vials. He hadn't seen the stockroom, but his memories easily called up the sight of bright lights gleaming off glass, of the clink and clatter as he'd grab what was needed. A cornucopia of endless supply as if left by magicians. Where they came from was never a question: he'd worked in government hospitals.

It wasn't until he'd left the Core that he realized life was not the same elsewhere.

He'd never thought about life elsewhere, since for as long as he could remember, his imaginings had focused on one goal.

It was a standard assignment; every class did it in preparation for career day. Oh they couched it in different language but it all boiled down to "What I Want to be When I Grow Up".

Most of the class bemoaned the task, changing their plans each year. The only challenge he faced was repeating the same desire in new language; each year growing more and more detailed, starting as Doctor and narrowing to emergency surgeon with a focus on Neurosurgery. There had been no decision as medicine had, and this was something he'd never admit aloud, called to him. It's blend of science and aiding. Able to apply knowledge to help people, to him it was a calling as strong if not stronger than the few who'd joined the Shepherds.

And, now he'd thought about it, a lifestyle almost as reclusive for the first few years as that more traditional vocation.

Bio-chemistry. Anatomy. The equipment. Even hospital management – at his mother's insistence. Medicine's many parts flowed with the grace of River's dancing. His mind leapt to connections before the text or profs could do so. Unlike pure research studies, he'd craved the dynamics of the emergency room. The human body was not a static system, and no solution was a constant. The need to keep strands of information clear enough to make sense but connected enough to heal was a challenge to his intellect in a way few things were.

Except maybe spelling, but that's why he had River.

The booty in front of him was not the only result from their visit to Ariel. He'd also achieved his more important goal for the mission-- or was it a heist?-- he'd been able to examine River. After reviewing the results from the test, he was thankful for his intelligence in a way he hadn't been for years. He knew he could solve this, but it would stretch him in ways that even River's rescue hadn't. But if he hadn't been so driven, so focused on learning everything he could, if he hadn't always planned to be a doctor, he wouldn't be in the position to reclaim his sister.

And that was something he would do, with or without Serenity.

"Simon, it's dinner time. There's fresh fruit, you coming?" Kaylee poked her head around the door of the infirmary, a wide smile lighting her face. A smile he might be putting on her face, if he hadn't seen her excitement at the mention of apples. Always nice to know where you rank in other's affections.

And wasn't that the hardest part of being here?

"Almost done. I'll be right there."

She nodded and headed towards the galley, towards the apples. The apples, a gift from Jayne. That was a conundrum almost as puzzling as what had happened to River. As were his actions on Ariel. Same as Mal flying in to rescue them on Jiangyin -- home of cattle rustlers and religious kidnappers, travel did expand the mind -- had upset his understanding of their position on the ship. Not guests, not passengers, but crew.

It was all muddled, as tangled as the yarn when River had tried to imitate settlers and knit him a sweater. It had been so reassuring to find SOMETHING she couldn't pick up immediately, even if the two of them had spent more time giggling than unknotting the colored lines.

Before it had been easy. In school top marks showed your rank. His mother had trained both River and himself in the social map of the best families from their first solid foods. As long as he was a Tam, as long as he diagnosed faster, learned surgery techniques quicker, saved more lives, as long as he married a society wife, he had traditional markers that said who he was and where he belonged, quantifiable.

Not here. Nothing was quantifiable on Serenity. He looked over his newly stocked infirmary, well not usually.

He wondered what his teachers would say if he sent an updated report "What I became when I grew up": social outcast; criminal mastermind; cutting edge researcher into mental and neuro medicine; soon to be expert in gunshot wounds; my sister's keeper; crew.

And it was that last that was the most unsettling. What were his obligations? What were his, and River's, rights? What did that mean regarding Kaylee? Not quantifiable. Nothing that science could discern.

"Simon!" Kaylee was back again, standing in front of him, coveralls half off hanging from her waist. Hands akimbo with a mock glare. "Didn't I mention fresh fruit?"

Before his life had been mapped to the minute. Each course, each step envisioned and a path from which there was no wandering. It wasn't a life as much as it was a plan.

Out here, there were no plans, but there might just be a life worth living.

"Apples, you said?" He reached up, and was pulled forward by Kaylee's greasy hand.


End file.
